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Celebrating Student Achievement at the Children’s Dyslexia Centers Every summer, hundreds of Children’s Dyslexia Center (CDC) students graduate from the program in local ceremonies known as Celebrations of Achievement. While dyslexia cannot be cured (so a student never truly “graduates” from the condition), these ceremonies serve as an important reminder of how hard these students have worked to overcome reading challenges. Most students graduate from the program after two and a half years of one-on-one support from their tutor. Because of the challenges and stigma surrounding dyslexia, many children enter the program afraid and
skeptical. However, over the course of hundreds of hours spent together, students and tutors begin to build trust and understanding rooted not only in the progress they have made in reading, but also through sharing
2022 Celebration of Achievement Children’s Dyslexia Center of the Great Lakes
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their hobbies, interests, and how they have grown as an individual. For both the child and tutor, this bond can make Celebrations of Achievement bittersweet as they prepare to say goodbye.
More than 900 children are expected to graduate from the program this year. Gia Kiley, a tutor at the Children’s Dyslexia Center of Madison, is no stranger to this feeling. In 2019, she began working one-on-one with Nate, a severely dyslexic child afraid to raise his hand in the classroom. Speaking at his Celebration of Achievement just two years later, voice brimming with emotion, Gia shared, “He is such an incredibly calm, hardworking, funny, amazing student. After a while, we started reading this gigantic book,
Children’s Dyslexia Center of Western Pennsylvania
The Northern Light
